Northern Open 11

 Initially I was planning to attend the Northern Open (NO) 11 as a Tournament Organizer rather than play but I was glad to be convinced to play. It has been a while since I played my Caledonia and with 28 people attending it was one of the biggest NO we had. I ranked 11th, so above the middle line which is where I tend to rank when I am not being overly competitive.

We played two new missions from the Season 9, which were kinda confusing. Never thought I'd miss straight forward missions like Supremacy. As always it was good to see lots of new people attending and the regulars. The event was won by Matt, who I think has by now won nearly half the NO events (despite his often horrendous dice rolls!).

Army Lists

List A

List B

Both of my army lists were from previous Northern Open events when I played Caledonia. As mentioned earlier I didn't plan to play in the NO11 so it was last minute lists. They did well enough in previous events with objective based missions so I figured I'd run them again. 

List A had Scots Guard Fireteam as the main attack piece, with Caterans and Highlanders to support SAS and Uxia taking objectives. List B was mainly intended for Acquisition where the deployment was 16 inches, so I could utilize the aggressive nature of that list.

Game 1: Power Pack - Caledonia vs ALEPH

Lost 1 to 6 (0 TP)

It had to be fate that my first opponent of the day would be Al. We even played on the same table as last time, albeit set up differently. When we played last time at the Northern Open 10 I managed to beat him with some very good rolls, and unlucky ARM saves on his part. So it was a prime opportunity for him to get his revenge. The set up on this mission was very odd because you could only deploy in corners of the board, which weren't great on either side of the table. I won the Lt roll and decided to go second, planning to win by having the last turn. As always, I regretted it soon after (going first just feels better).

My biggest mistake during deployment was having my Missile Launcher Scots Guard and a Cateran standing up. They were arguably in a good position but I always forget about the Smoke+MSV Lv2 trick, which I really should expect from ALEPH. It really is the most common mistake I keep repeating. Thanks to a very long fire-lane across the board, Al was able to drop Smoke with some unit which allowed another unit that had MSV Lv2 and Feuerbach to attack my ARO units. To make matters worse the mission had Saturation Zone across the middle of the board which took away my Missile Launcher Burst 2 Fireteam advantage. 

Needles to say, both of my ARO units died. Al then went on bit of a rampage with Achilles and few other units. Everything that wasn't hiding pretty much died and Al ended up surrounding my left corner (where I had Wallace with the remaining Scots Guards) with three units on Suppressive Fire. I'll be honest, I thought by end of Al's turn the game was over (which was only fair after what I did to Al in our previous game). I lost a good chunk of my Order Pool and most of my good units. 

But then my second Cateran decided to be awesome. First I managed to snipe the unit with Feuerbach, then he went on to kill a Total Reaction Remote and both of the units on Suppressive Fire that were pinning down Wallace (I love T2 so much). It was such an unexpected swing that gave me a fighting chance. With the Orders I had left I used an SAS to get an objective. Which I did manage to get but Al revealed a TO Infiltrator which killed my SAS.

The second turn was less eventful as Al lost his attack units. He did however had a better foothold on the objectives and capitalized on it by securing two, one of them was the one I took with the SAS so I was back to zero. Unfortunately for me two of the objectives ended up on buildings and my remaining Specialists were 4-2 MOV Scots Guard. I just didn't have enough Orders to be able to get them to the objectives. My plan instead was to reduce the amount of points Al could get, which I could mainly achieve by killing Achilles who was his Data Tracker.

But as you might image, killing Achilles is easier said than done. First I sent two Highlanders at him in a Coordinated Order. I was hoping I could get two Crits thanks to CC27 and +1 Burst (from having two units in CC), but I only managed one Wound. Both of the Highlanders died to AROs. My last form of attack was Wallace. With his 6-4 MOV he got to the CC quickly and went Berserk. The result was both Wallace and Achilles dying, which was pretty funny.

Overall a fun game with an interesting first turn. In retrospect I would say the problem with my list was that it wasn't tailored for this mission which feels it needs more Infiltrating, or at least fast Specialists. Though it also could have been the table itself, which wasn't really set up for this kind of deployment. The game could have gone better with the regular way of deploying I think.

Game 2: Acquisition - Caledonia vs Onyx Contact Force

Won 3 to 2 (2 TP)

My second game was against a new player Ross. We got a really cool table to play on, I thought it was set up really well with combination of tight corridors, dense areas and also open killing fields. After Lt roll I decided to go first (not wanting to repeat the mistake of game one). My deployment was quite spread out, long range weapons in middle and each flank, and fast aggressive units on each flank also. Ross was playing Onyx Force which I knew could have some nasty units, so I wanted to be covered on all angles. 

After deployment, my plan to send Wallace with his Merry Band of Highlander down the flank was stalled by a TAG with Plasma Sniper Rifles. It deployed on a roof opposite of them. I didn't want to risk being hit with templates so my first turn was focused on getting rid of the TAG. Thankfully I had a Scots Guard with Missile Launcher in Camo not too far away. It took me more Orders than expected but eventually I did shoot the TAG off the board. I was hoping to do more but the Scots Guard used up most of the Orders spent in that combat group. In the other group I was able to use Cateran and Uxia to thin down units from a Fireteam of Batroids. I also moved up Wallace and Highlanders into some cover.

Ross was holding back in his turn, mostly moving units into position out of line of sight and getting to objectives. He has also used Bit & Kiss in Cyber-Mask to get to the objective in the middle, allowing him to put them into good ARO positions should I try take it. Ross did also manage to active an objective on my right with a Specialist Remote. The Batroid Fireteam was pinned down by one of my Caterans, so they didn't do much.

As we were taking such a long first turn I had to be more aggressive in my second turn, in terms of getting objectives (we were unlikely to get a third turn). I started with Wallace and Highlanders taking out the Specialist Remote on my right and occupying that objective. Then I used my 112 Doctor to go take the objective on the left. His Light Shotgun seemed like a decent deterrent for Bit & Kiss who didn't want to reveal themselves. Which allowed the 112 to get to the objective, activate it and hide Prone to control it. With my remaining Orders I did attack Bit with a Volunteer. I was able to Chain Rifle her, with the Volunteer dying to an ARO.

Ross also didn't have a choice and had to be aggressive in his turn, which was going to be the last one of the game. His best option was to get his remaining Batroid, Umbra and Nexus (all in one Fireteam) to the objectives but he was going to be taking Cateran fire along the way. Which worked out for him because I kept either rolling poor or he kept passing ARM saves. Ross did manage to get really close to the objectives but eventually my Urugan was able to draw line of sight and that proved to be too much for the Fireteam to handle.

That all said and done, I managed to win only by one point. Neither of us had the Tech Coffin (middle objective), we both activated one objective and then I controlled two and Ross did his Classified Objective. I think my struggle with his mission was not focusing on the objectives from turn one, though I might have got more points (or at least chance to take them) if we had full three turns.

Game 3: Supplies - Caledonia vs Onyx Contact Force

Won 7 to 2 (3 TP)

My last game was also against a new opponent (who I believe came down to Leeds with Ross), but unfortunately I forgot to write down his name. He was also playing Onyx Force but a very different list. After the Lt roll I decided to go first (my favourite thing for Supplies) and deployed with the plan to take the objective on the right and in the middle, so my defenses were set up to cover those sections the most. Since the only high ground I had were two shipping containers it was where my Ceterans deployed Prone.

During deployment of reserves, which for me was Uxia (as always), I changed my plan a bit because my opponent deployed a Total Reaction Remove on a high roof which was a big threat to the Caterans. So I rolled for Infiltrating Uxia near the Remote, and managed to pass the roll. My first Order (after Impetuous) was to use Uxia to kill the REM, but it didn't work out. I rolled poorly with the Burst 5 and she died. My Fireteam was not in a good position to take on the REM so I used one of the Caterans, which worked out even without being in cover against the REM.

With that taken care of I was able to use an SAS to take the objective on the left and go hide with it. I still had a bunch of Orders left in the first group so I have re-positioned my Scots Guard to attack my opponent's Fireteam of Rodoks. It wasn't the most favourable firefight for me as we were on very similar BS (after all bonuses and modifiers) but it was my best option at reducing their number. My opponent won the first face to face rolls but I did hit with the Missile Launcher and the other affected units could not declare Dodge (as they were in a Fireteam), so they died. My Scots Guard passed his ARM save and with a second round of shooting he killed the Rodok that he shot previously.

The positions of the Caterans turned out to be better than expected as my opponent was pinned down by them. His only unit with MSV Lv2 (which really helps against Caterans) only had a short range weapon and a Batroid with Missile Launcher did not have an easy time hitting a Sniper with Mimetism and in cover. After the Batroid died my opponent moved his units around and went to Coup de Grace my unconscious Uxia with a Rodok. To which I responded with both Caterans and killed the Rodok.

I often think to myself I would like to utilize my 112 for more than just sitting back and heal Snipers or other long range units so in my second turn I spent most Orders on him getting objectives. First he moved to the middle and took the objective out, which was then passed onto a Highlander. Then the 112 went to the objective on the left and took it out as well. I was feeling cocky and used the 112 to attack Batroids inside a building, I felt with the Shotgun he'd have a good chance. But whilst I won the roll my opponent passed his ARM save. After spending all those Orders I used a Scots Guard in the first group to do a Sabotage Classified Objective.

In his second turn my opponent killed the 112 and then used his Umbra to move close to my units on right flank. He thought he could attack my SAS who was relatively close but didn't have enough Orders as the Umbra was initially deployed on a roof with the Rodoks. So instead he attacked my Scots Guard in CC. I tied to kill the Umbra with DEP as ARO but lost the face to face roll. The Umbra then hid for the next turn.

In my last turn I thought I could use Wallace to kill all of the Batroids on the other side of the board (to avenge the 112). With 6-4 MOV he got there really fast but I fluffed the first attack. I was in good range and everything but rolled poorly, even on the ARM and BTS saves, which got Wallace killed. The last Orders I had I spent on the two units with the objectives, just running as deep into my Deployment Zone as they could to hide them.

My opponent didn't have enough Orders left in his last turn to chase them, so he just tried to kill whatever he could get to. Funnily enough, the unit with MSV Lv2 and Combi Rifle (Maakrep) that was hiding the whole game was his Lt and when it took a shot at a Cateran it managed to kill him. I didn't mean for the Caterans to be in such an oppressive place for my opponent, as he was new to tournaments, but if nothing else I hope it was a lesson to have more long range weapons next time. Units like the Maakrep are really good with HMG.

Birthday Event - Random Lists

Earlier in October we did a small casual event to celebrate one of my mate's birthday. It was six of us playing three missions over the day with a random list each game. Everyone made a list or two that were put into a hat before each round. I ended up playing Combined Army and Haqqislam (vanilla and Qapu Khalqi) but there were also PanO, Morats, Nomads, Yu Jing and Steel Phalanx. All lists were Limited Insertion to keep the games within the time limit and to not make it overly confusing when playing armies we haven't played with before.

I thought it was a really fun format to try. It was a great opportunity to try different armies without having to buy the models or proxying models. Plus all the lists had to follow a set of rules to be fair, so there were no intentionally bad lists.

Army List

My Morat List 

The lists we made had to be Limited Insertion and we had spend at least 298pts and 5 SWC. There was also a general rule of being fair and include a selection of specialists. I decided to make a Morat list because I felt they are easy to play and they have a decent selection of well priced units for Limited Insertion. We had the option to make different lists for each mission but because I left it to the last minute, I just made one general list that could do all three missions.

For Specialists I went with Dr Worm for Doctor & Engineer, Kurgat with Mk12 also an Engineer but with a better gun, Yaogat Hacker to provide Supportware and to form a Fireteam, and Anyat who is a Specialist Operative. The last two tied well into the big guns.

Anyat had Smoke Grenades which allowed Fireteam of three Yaogats to use the good old MVS Lv2+Smoke trick. The Yaogats had a Sniper Rifle, Combi RIfle and Boarding Shotgun to cover all the range bands. The list also had two HMGs, one on Tempest Regiment and the other on Total Reaction Remote; both good attack and defensive units.

Kornak is just a good Lt option with Strategos Lv1 and his Mk12 is also decent weapon. The Ikadron was there mainly to fill in last 9pts but it is also a pretty good utility unit as it has Flash Pulse, Flamethrowers, Repeater and Baggage. Overall I felt the list had a good mix of everything. I didn't get to play with it myself but I heard no complaints during the day about it.

Game 1:  Power Pack - Combined Army vs Steel Phalanx

Major Victory

The first mission of the day was a new ITS mission. I never played it before but it involved several objectives which I knew from the start was going to be trouble because we played Limited Insertion and there is only so much you can do with 10 Orders. It did not help my first opponent was Matt, a numerous tournament champion. On the Lt roll I decided go to second, hoping to have the advantage of the very last turn. All I had to do was survive the first turn against Steel Phalanx; no pressure.

The main problem I felt I had was during the deployment. Much of my army was wider than Silhouette 2 which meant I wasn't able to deploy on the ground, which was either open or the buildings had too narrow doorways. This left me deploying many units on an elevated building which had walkways wide enough for my troops, and there was also only one place for my Avatar to deploy and be hidden.

The first turn didn't go to terrible, I got lucky on an ARO where a Noctifier with a Missile Launcher was able to cripple Hector's Fireteam and take a Wound off him too. I still lost a bunch of units but I believe I was able to finish Hector with later AROs which took care of Matt's attack on my left flank and it cornered his other Fireteam on my right side of the board. Quite literally as he decided to hide inside a building, he didn't want to be taking long range fire from the Avatar.

With rather limited number of Orders and inability to kill many units, my plan became to weather the Steel Phalanx and then run the Avatar to an objective in the last turn. As such my first turn wasn't very eventful. I think I was able to kill one, maybe two units.

The second turn was quite funny for me, one of my Unidron Batroids was able to tank so many attacks. Which very much halted Matt's attack on my right flank. He had to end his turn with his guys in the open which allowed the Avatar to have some fun in my turn.

In the very last turn Matt was mainly just trying to stop me from be able to take any objectives but the Avatar proved to be too much of a challenge for his remaining units. He knew in my last turn I would have only just about enough Orders to run the Avatar to the objective near his Deployment Zone (which would give the most points) so he ended his turn with his units inside a building, looking out a doorway that would give them AROs at the Avatar.

But he did not take into account the Avatar could walk over the building! So I just walked over the enemies, gave them no AROs and run to the objective for victory. 

Game 2:  Ultra Classified - Haqqislam vs Morats

Minor Victory

The second mission was made of all the Classified Objectives (including Secure HVT), 1 point per Classified completed, so I was hoping the army I drew was able to do them all. Unfortunately I was missing any form of Remote so I wasn't able to complete one. But otherwise I had a selection of Specialists, some of which had Infiltration and Camo. After the Lt roll I took the initiative and went first. I deployed both of my Infiltrators on top of a building near middle of the board, it was where my opponent Oliver deployed his HVT (we had them both near each other) and my Infiltrators were a Forward Observer and a Hacker, which would let me do bunch of the Classified.

To do all that first I had to take care of a HMG Remote, which failed miserably. The silver lining was that I was able to get one Classified for healing an unconscious unit. But it took most of my Orders so to end the turn I attacked Oliver's lined up units with a Fiday. I was able to take out an Engineer and wound Kornak.

Oliver took his revenge in his turn, killing one of my Infiltrators with MSV Lv2 Sniper. I believe Dr Worm also managed to heal the Engineer. I am pretty sure my Fiday also got killed in that turn, but he did drop a mine before he died just to slow down enemy units. Oliver then moved up some units in preparation for the second turn.

Which for me was extremely short and frustrating. I wanted to use my Hacker while he was alive to get as many Classified as he could but he failed so many WIP rolls! I basically spent the whole turn failing at rolling low. Oliver then went on the offensive and tried to kill that Hacker with Anyat. She had the easiest time getting to him thanks to Climbing Plus but Oliver's dice decided to be as useful in his turn as mine were in my turn, and so Anyat died to AROs whilst my Hacker lived. Which took away Oliver's Smoke Grenades so I was happy.

Third turn went bit better, I was able to complete some Classified with my Hacker and also with my Engineer I did Sabotage. I then tried to get the Engineer base to base with enemy HVT to interact with it for another Classified and whilst I was able to get there, I failed the WIP roll and then the Engineer died to AROs. With last Orders I had I just moved as many units into ARO positions as possible, just to slow down Oliver if nothing else.

It worked better than I could have hoped for. Al Fasid and another unit, I think it was Asawira, did brilliantly. I was shooting with a Rifle at -6 BS and kept winning rolls! It was very lucky for sure and also highly amusing for me. Whilst Oliver had more Orders in his last turn than I did, my lucky AROs slowed him down a lot. He was able to kill both of my guys eventually but by then he didn't have enough Orders to achieve more Classified than I did. I don't remember which Classified it was that gave me the victory, but I did win by doing one more than Oliver did.

Game 3:  Escape - Qapu Khalqi vs Nomads

Draw

The last mission was James' custom mission. It revolved around a drop-ship in the middle of the board which had to be repaired so your army could use it to escape (originally it was part of campaign). The objectives were to repair the ship, hack the entrance and then finish the game with a unit inside of it. The repair and hacking had specified points on the ship (front and sides or back) and required one successful WIP each. A tricky mission to complete even without Limited Insertion. We also played it with Exclusion Zone (8 inches from the middle on each side). 

The list I drew was Qapu Khalqi with a full Fireteam of something that was able to have Rocket Launchers (I think they were Sekban) and there were three of them. There was also Fireteam Duo of Janissaries Doctors and some Infiltrators. I thought it would be a fun list to play as I like to use Fireteams to hold down board zones with AROs. I am not sure how the Lr roll went but I ended up going first. My plan was to use the Fireteam to take out enemy long range weapons on AROs and then bunker down around the drop-ship so in the second and third turn I could go for the win.

But as it often happens, my plans and my first turn were two completely separate things. I failed like very single roll I made and one Nomad sniper just annihilated my Rocket Launchers. All I could do afterwards was to move some of my units to ARO positions. The Janissaries ended the turn taking cover at the front of the ship.

If my first active turn was the bad end of the spectrum, my first reactive turn was the complete opposite. James had Iguana TAG in his list and it just failed against the Janissaries. The ejected pilot landed somewhere that got him killed next time he activated. The same happened with everything James used to try kill the Janissaries so he could get to the ship. 

 In the second turn I was just trying to capitalize on James' failed attacks by placing more units into defensive positions if any enemy unit tried to get to the ship. I also tried to revive some units but I believe I either failed to hit with the MedKit or killed them. James' second turn didn't go much better than his first, the Janissaries were still able to hold the ground well. I think it was in the second turn that one of them did die.

The third turn was the last chance for me to try win the game so I did use some Orders to WIP the drop-ship but to complete the mission I could fail only one WIP. After I failed two of them I just ended the turn with a Janissary on Suppressive Fire. James wasn't able to get through my defenses on his last turn either and so we ended in a draw as nobody passed a single WIP check on the drop-ship.

It started terrible for me but at the end I thought it was a funny game which really showed how your luck can change from turn to turn.

Pride of Rodina - $wag Box

 Earlier this year Pride of Rodina (PoR) was holding a painting contest through Facebook and I have entered my Veteran Kazak, which ended up to be the winning entry. Kyle sent me a box of Pride of Rodina merchandise, which has arrived today from across the Atlantic so I thought I'd share unboxing of this awesome PoR swag.

The box was padded with a genuine copy of Southeast Missourian newspaper, and I'd like to say that American newspaper are so weird comparing to the British newspaper! They are like really long, and thin. 

Inside the box I found a t-shirt, a patch, six button badges, set of templates, a fancy brush, a tournament box and an awesome PoR miniature; everything (except the brush) has the PoR logo and is of good quality. The tournament box needs assembly so I'll share how it looks when I built it.

I think the miniature is the most impressive thing. I remember seeing the 3D pictures of it on Facebook and its really cool to hold it in my hands. It fits perfectly into an Ariadna army and I love the details. It will make for a great Spetsnaz proxy or any unit with a Sniper Rifle. I am certainly looking forward to painting it.

Hull's Infinity - Direct Action 2

 On the 16th of September me and Dr Greg (The Plastic Crack Blog) went to Hull for their second tournament so far. It was held at the same venue as last time (which is a pretty cool gaming store) but with more people attending, and this time it was also more new people (or at least people I haven't played often on events). As it was also a Limited Insertion (LI) event I took it as an opportunity to try LI one more time and see if I like it better when the missions are more straight forward. 

I have to say that I did enjoy LI more that way. As hard as it is to play with such a small Order pool, without objectives it wasn't too bad. It was also great opportunity to try out Blackjacks in USARF. They had new models released recently and I wanted to give them a try before committing to purchases and more models to paint. 

Overall it was a pretty fun day. I managed to come second with three victories (one major, two minor). I don't know if it was my lists, the missions or just luck that on two of the missions I scored pretty low as far as Objective Points go. If I were to play LI again, I'd definitely want it to be Direct Action missions.

Army Lists

List A

List B

As you can see the core of both lists was a Fireteam: Core of Marauders. Out of the Fireteam choices in USARF they are my favourite because they come with good long range options (both of which have MSV Lv1) and with Heavy Flamers on most options, they are deadly up close as well. In addition they come with Heavy Pistols, have Stealth and Forward Deployment. Even Dogged comes in handy quite often, so overall a solid Fireteam and they are pretty good for LI points-wise as well.

The difference in the lists was because of the missions. List A was for Annihilation and Front Line, the plan being to use the Fireteam and Blackjacks to hold the line and hammer the enemy from distance. Meanwhile Van Zant would swoop in from behind and get extra Order as the Lt, either to assassinate enemy Lt or just take out something important. Unknown Ranger I like overall, but CoC was important for Lt Van Zant to work. The Foxtrot was kind of a points filler, but he was good at taking the fight to the enemy from close up and/or protecting one of my flanks with mines.  I sure was glad to have the Foxtrot.

List B was for Decapitation. The idea was similar but I dropped the Unknown Ranger as CoC was redundant in that mission and I didn't give Van Zant  Executive Order because I didn't want my opponent to get an easy Lt kill. Instead of the Ranger I took a third Blackjack (they are AVA 3, how crazy is that!) and a Minuteman. I thought the Minuteman could make good Lt replacement choice if my original Lt got killed. 

Overall both lists worked just as I wanted them to, though I did notice there was a big drawback in terms of mobility, most of the army was 4-2 MOV. Which was not that much of a problem because I was counting on long range weapons, but it was troublesome on tables where I couldn't snipe across the board easily, or my opponent just decided to hide. 

I was really happy with the Blackjacks, in all games they were worth the points and I can definitely see myself taking at least two in every USA army, even non LI. If not two, then at least one for sure. They truly felt like proper Ariadna Heavy Infantry with 2 Wounds and their weapon options are very versatile, you can fight the enemy from range and close up.

Game 1:  Annihilation - USARF vs Bakunin

Won 6 to 3 (2 TP)

My first game was against Ed, I believe I met him before on events but I think it was first time we played against each another (maybe second time, bad memory). At any case I wasn't sure what to expect but it was cool to see Bakunin. His army had a full Fireteam of Riot Grrls which reminded me of my first ever tournament army. The table we played on was quite nice looking with its natural theme and it was surprisingly more dense than it appeared once we started playing.

I fluffed the Lt roll and Ed decided to pick deployment, he didn't want Saturation & Low Vis zones on his side. I didn't mind so much because my Marauders had MSV Lv1. I decided to go first because in this mission it didn't help much to go second and I didn't want to give Ed's TAG the chance to attack my units without some preparation.

Ed deployed with almost everything out of sight (which was smart) and given the limited pool of 10 Orders in my first turn I only managed to kill one Riot Grrl with Blackjack HMG. I didn't have enough Orders to Alpha Strike (and most of my army was 4-2 MOV) so instead I tried to get some good positioning. The Marauders moved into the forest/jungle to take advantage of the terrain rules and be in cover. Blackjacks also moved into cover, the T2 Sniper Rifle hanging bit further back and the HMG almost in the middle. The HMG went on Suppressive Fire and before end of my turn I moved my one camo marker close to Ed's camo marker on my left flank (in front of Marauders).

The Blackjack HMG proved to be a hard nut to crack for Ed. He spent just about all of his first turn trying to kill the it and only succeeded at the very end. But by then the Nomad TAG was down to 1 Structure and I think I also wounded a Riot Grrl.

I didn't feel I had enough Orders to attack with the Marauders so I started second turn with my camo marker attacking Ed's marker. After some messing around my Foxtrot with a Boarding Shotgun revealed a Zero and killed him but the Zero dropped a mine which the Foxtrot tried to Dodge and failed, I had to try get the mine out of the way so next turn Marauders could move. With that done I dropped Van Zant on the right flank near Ed's Deployment Zone. My goal was to finish the TAG (it was Ed's Data Tracker and a big threat) but I also had to make sure to kill the Engineer, but to get to him I had to kill a Moderator first. So yeah, pretty daring strategy. But it worked like a charm! Van Zant killed all three of his targets and then ended the turn in cover and on Suppressive Fire.

Although a pretty hard blow, Ed still had four Riot Grrls and his second Moderator which was the Lt, so he wasn't out of the fight yet. The terrain was making it hard for me to attack from distance, making all my snipers useless. Ed did try to kill Van Zant but the remaining Riot Grrls only had Combi and Multi Rifles and the range bands made it very hard; Van Zant lived to see the third turn.

I admit I made bad mistake in my last turn because I forgot about a certain special kill the Riot Grrls have. They were all bunched up and I thought I could hit them all with a Burst 2 (thanks to Fireteam support) Heavy Flamethrower; I could have killed them all in blaze of glory. So I spent lots of Orders moving the Marauders forward and got them all lined up behind the rock. I hit three of the four Grrls with a Heavy Flamethrower as planned and then Ed reminded me they have Hyper-Dynamics! So they were dodging on 16s or something stupid.

My Marauder thankfully survived, albeit only for a turn as he had to go Dodged. While he was still standing I spent more Orders on the Fireteam to move them back, spread them out and on their way the Dodged guy was using his Heavy Pistol to take out one Riot Grrl at a time. I also spent Order or two on Van Zant to move into into a safer position to keep him alive.

To make matters worse for my Marauders, one of the Grrls that survived had a shotgun. Ed used her to attack them and I rolled really bad (though up to this point I did roll really well), all three exposed Marauders died or would die at the end of the turn, I think one was able to go Dogged. Blackjack with T2 Sniper Rifle managed to kill the Riot Grrl on ARO at least. Ed spent his last Orders on the surviving Moderator as he figured by moving into open he can attack Van Zant and potentially take lots of army points off me, but I managed to crit Dodge and hide him further which ended the game.

It was a pretty fun game. I did have luck on my side as the only crits were mine, most of those on Van Zant who was in proper beast mode. The one advantage I noticed during the game was having way more long range weapons. I had HMG, three Snipers and Heavy Rocket Launcher while Ed had HMG on a TAG and Spitfire on a Riot Grrl, so once they were dead it was hard for him to attack me as long as I kept the distance between our units.

And yes, if you are wondering why I did not mention Unknown Ranger at all, it is because he did nothing the whole game. He was my Data Tracker so he just sat at the back of the board hiding.

Game 2:  Decapitation - USARF vs NeoTerra

Won 10 to 2 (3 TP)

My second opponent was James, also a new opponent. I can't quite remember how the Lr roll went but I ended deploying first and having the first turn. The table was fairly equal on both sides except one large structure just outside of the 16 inch Deployment Zone on my side of the table. Which proved to be a great deployment for my Fireteam of Marauders with Forward Deployment! I admit it was bit cheeky to deploy the Fireteam up there but it was too good to pass up. I was expecting to face TO Swiss Guards so had to use every advantage I could get. The rest of my army were three Blackjacks, one on each flank and one in the middle and a Minuteman on my left flank.

James deployed most of his army also on my left flank. He had five Bolts lined up behind a building and Squalos TAG not far behind them, hiding from my Marauders behind a piece of terrain. The way I saw it, I had two choices for my first turn: deal with the TAG or the Bolts. I certainly did not have enough Orders to deal with both. The Bolts were tempting because I had Heavy Flamethrowers and Boarding Shotgun in my Fireteam but the Marauders would have to abandon their good position.

 So instead I went with a riskier strategy to kill the TAG with no other than Van Zant! James forgot (or didn't know) that Van Zant can show up on the back edge of his Deployment Zone so most of his guys were looking at the sides where you would expect normal Airborne Deployment units. By luck he had some Bolts looking back which left literally only one place for Van Zant to deploy and have the TAG in sight. The distance was very short though, so I had only one free shot where the TAG had to do Change Facing. I think I managed to take off one Structure point. The rest of my turn was pretty much spent on shooting the TAG and Van Zant being shot by a PanO Doctor who could see him after turning around.

This fight lasted several Orders and I had some really lucky rolls; eventually I managed to kill the TAG off the board. Van Zant also suffered a Wound but while Dogged he also managed to kill the PanO Doctor and then an Engineer who was hiding behind the Doctor. The first turn really couldn't have gone any better for me, though I did lose my Heavy Rocket Launcher Marauder. I found a line of sight at the TAG and thought I'd hit it from long range (as I had the burst and BS advantage) but fluffed those rolls and the TAG used EXP rounds.

Loosing the Squalos was a hard blow but James still had a full Fireteam of Bolts (similar to how first game went, kill a TAG but Fireteam to deal with) and a Hexa (Hacker I believe) which revealed in my first turn when I activated the Marauders, so he wasn't out of the game yet. The plan of attack of the Bolts was to round the building they were hiding behind and take out my Designated Target, but to do that they had to through a Blackjack with T2 Sniper Rifle. James decided to try a Missile Launcher Bolt first, but the face to face roll went in my favour and the Bolt died to T2. Next up was Spitfire Bolt who had much easier time out-rolling the Blackjack with the high burst. The Bolts then killed my Designated Target and bunkered down around the left tower, it gave them good cover from all my attacks. Before end of his turn though, James also used the Bolts to drop a Drop Bear on top of the towers with Speculative Fire. This pretty much assured I wasn't going to activate my Marauders for the rest of the game as I wasn't going to risk loosing my Lt to the mine.

My second turn was not as eventful as the first. I needed to take my HMG Blackjack (my Data Tracker) and cross to the other side of my Deployment Zone so I could use him to kill James' Designated Target. However, the Bolts were in the way so I had to take care of them first. I tried to attack them with my Minuteman but we didn't realize Marksmanship was an optional skill, and Bolts have this ability to use their BTS instead of ARM for saves against Shock ammo... so that didn't work. My next best option was to use the HMG Blackjack against one Bolt at a time, but my rolls just would not work. Either I kept missing or James was passing his saves. I might have killed one Bolt at best by the end of my turn.

The failings of my second turn were, however, made up by my AROs. I still had a second Blackjack with T2 Sniper Rifle who was great at taking out the Bolts. The Bolts really did not like T2 ammo. There wasn't much James could do with the last 2-3 Bolts, though he did kill my Minuteman. My very last turn was more about mopping up and spending most Orders moving the HMG Blackjack across the table to kill the Designated Target. It was another fun game , and I think James will never forget to have troops looking at the back of his Deployment Zone should he face USARF (or vanilla Ariadna) again!

Game 3: Frontline - USARF vs Ariadna

Won 4 to 1 (2 TP)

(I forgot to take pictures during the game, this is the table but from a different game.)

The last game was against Anthony (also a new opponent for me) and his vanilla Ariadna, which did make me worried because I was doing well thus far and didn't want my hopes of good ranking be quelled by a Spetsnaz or two. At the same time though, it was going to be a good test for the Blackjacks which were doing great so far. I can't remember how Lt rolls went but I believe I was Deploying First and I know I had the second turn. The table looked more open than it was, it was playing with all buildings as infinite height so line of fire was limited to mostly between the buildings. My Marauders were again able to deploy on top of a tall platform right outside of the Deployment Zone (thank you Forward Deployment!), which allowed me to watch over approaches to my Deployment Zone with two Snipers, they were next to each another on the left tower.

I had HMG Blackjack in the middle, in a building; Sniper Blackjack was on my left flank with the Unknown Ranger and Foxtrot was in a building near the center line of the board. It left my right flank kind of exposed but I wasn't worried if Anthony wanted to spend half his turn moving units there, easier for me to attack him. Anthony started his turn by Knauf trying to take on the Marauder Snipers but my guys had MSV Lv1 and more dice to roll, so it didn't end up well for him. The next attack came from the left, an AD Spetsnaz with a Boarding Shotgun came on and tried to kill the Unknown Ranger and the T2 Blackjack. He was able to get a Wound on the Blackjack but my Unknown Ranger managed to Engage. And thats where the Spetsnaz and Ranger spent the rest of the game, not once being activated again. Neither of us wanted to potentially lose their model.

Anthony also attacked with a Cameronian. The werewolf run up to the platform where my Marauders were and jumped up so he could hit them with Chain Rifles. He took tons of AROs in the process and died, but so did at least two of my Marauders, which was kinda frustrating (now I know how my opponents feel when I do it with my Cameronians). After that Anthony just moved up few of his units forward.

My turn started with trying to kill a Veteran Kazak with my Snipers but Anthony passed ARM saves and the Kazak spent the rest of the game hiding in a bin from the Snipers. I also moved up both Blackjacks forward and I tried to Discover a Camo Marker with the HMG but it didn't work out. I believe my Foxtrot managed to take out Anthony's Wardriver but it didn't feel like an impact turn. My plan was to mostly stay alive until Anthony's last turn so I could just snatch the zones I needed to win.

Anthony of course wasn't going to make it easy. The camo marker I was trying to discover moved quite far, almost into my Deployment Zone so it could draw Line of Fire on my HMG Blackjack and then of all the things, it was a bloody Tank Hunter with Auto-cannon!  Needless to say, the Blackjack got obliterated. Uxia, who failed to infiltrate when Anthony was deploying, also spent several Orders shooting a mine that my Foxtrot left behind during my first turn. It was funnier for me than for Anthony but she kept rolling high with the Burst 5 Assault Pistols and couldn't hit it. It helped that she couldn't move into good range because it would trigger the mine.

My second turn was pretty much just dealing with the Tankhunter. Thankfully the Foxtrot had a Boarding Shotgun so at least it wasn't too hard to hit. I had +6 for Range and then -6 for Camo and Cover, so I was hitting on flat BS, while if I had Rifle I'd be hitting on -3 BS. As luck would have it, I had to spend few Orders trying to kill the Tankhunter but it had to be done. I had just about enough Orders to move forward my surviving T2 Blackjack and take the Foxtrot back to the where he started (he did spend most of the game in the same building).

In his last turn Anthony pretty much moved everything forward, except the Vet Kazak who was hiding in a bin from my Snipers and Spetsnaz still engaged in CC with my Unknown Ranger. The only fight that turn I can recall was between Uxia and the Foxtrot. Despite shooting her from point blank range with a shotgun, she survived and the Foxtrot got shanked in CC. It was hard to tell the zones on this table, but I thought Anthony had most of his units in the center zone. 

I'll be honest here, it was only in my last turn I realized that I haven't used Van Zant yet. Which kinda came in handy because I thought I could do a cheeky move to take the zone closest to Anthony's Deployment Zone, to me it looked like he only had a Marauder (his Lt) in that zone. So I did just that. Van Zant came in a safe position and stayed there to score the zone. My next plan was to move the Marauders to the center zone but to do that they had to leave the tower, which would give Uxia free ARO that I didn't want to risk. The T2 Blacknack who was staying in the zone near my Deployment Zone took a shot at Uxia and while she didn't die, she did use Smoke to hide herself; which was just as useful.

Marauders were free to get down and move forward to the center zone. I did think about activating the Unknown Ranger but he'd need at least two Orders (CC and then Move) to be helpful and I just didn't want to risk loosing him as I was already short on Orders. Before we measured it, I thought I had Van Zant taking the farthest zone, Marauders taking the center and Blackjack holding the nearest.

Things turned out very differently when we measured it though. Anthony didn't move his units far enough and all of them but Uxia were still in the zone nearest to his Deployment Zone (farthest zone for me). I tried to give Van Zant extra points with my Classified Card but it wasn't enough. I think Anthony tried to do the same for Uxia but it also wasn't not enough to outpoint the three Marauders. So in the end we both held the zone closest to our Deployment Zones and I had the central one too. The strangest thing about the whole game was that neither of us lost that many models or at least it didn't feel way, I was expecting mode deaths but I suppose the mission itself makes you more careful as you need units to survive to the last turn.